Friday, October 31, 2008

Wheeee!

I was at the bar for a bit tonight. I'm still sick, but wanted to get out as I haven't been out in a couple of weeks. Plus it's Halloween. So Danielle and I go to Tom's as usual. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone's costumes, plus we saw a butcher, a cow, a cowboy, and a pregnant farmwife do the entire Thriller dance. Twice. XD

Anyway, I was lamenting my lack of a plot for Nano. Danielle and I were tossing some stupid ideas back and forth and not coming up with much of anything. Then out of the blue I had it. Seriously, my entire plot just hit me like a freight train. I've got the main few characters, the entire story, everything in my head. I stopped in the middle of what I was saying, grinned like an idiot, and was like, "I got it." Then I told Danielle my basic idea and she just said, "Holy shit. This is why you're the writer. I wish I knew where you came up with this stuff." She loved it.

So now I'm jotting down all of the ideas I had so I don't lose any of them, and waiting for Nano to start in just over 20 minutes. I honestly don't remember being so excited to write something, and I've never had such an intricate story just pop into my head in its entirety. As long as I manage to implement it correctly, it will be GOOD.

Not even sure if this all makes sense, but I'm really pumped as I've been struggling with plot ideas for a few weeks now. I just wanted to share. Fifteen minutes to go!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Goals Update 16

Ooops. I realized that I've been meaning to redo this list and do another update for a while, but I hadn't realized the last update was from the beginning of September. Guess I should actually try and get it done now. >_>

I took a couple of things off the list last time, and there are a few I think I'm going to add in. So here goes...first for the goals from the original list. I haven't made nearly as much progress on these as I'd have liked to the past month and a half. Work has been nuts and I haven't been doing much of anything once I get home. As I get used to the new job I'm going to make the effort to not slack all night once I get home (just most of it).

1. Nano novel. A little bit of work on this, but not nearly as much as I'd like. I probably won't get to writing any of it again until December, but I may try and do some editing over the next month.

2. Write every day. Ha. Hardly. I wrote to Jade a bunch of times but that's about all I've managed lately. I'm definitely doing this all week though, need to brainstorm for Nano ideas. Once November hits I'll obviously be keeping this goal.

3. Let other people read my writing. I haven't written anything for anyone to read. >_>

4. Learn Japanese. I've kept up with what I already learned but that's about it. I suppose it's better than dropping it completely and forgetting everything? I'd like to get back to it but realistically I don't think it will happen before Christmas break. I'm going to make sure I keep reviewing what I know though.

5. Physical therapy. Taking this goal off the list. I'm not able to bend my finger completely but I think I'm as close as I'm going to get. I use my hand normally for most things, and I'll still pick up the stress ball out of habit, so maybe it will eventually get back to normal. But either way, I'm done keeping track of it here.

6.
Start buying less stuff, and finish what I have lying around the house. Good for the most part here. I've bought a few things, but I've also been getting through quite a lot. I'm going to try and cut my buying even more though, for the next few months. Christmas and bills to take care of.

7.
Organize my stuff and get rid of unnecessary clutter. I don't remember what I said I was going to do in the last update, but I know I never did it. >_> I'm mostly done with this though. I have a box of books to put away, and have to reorganize my games. And I have to get my winter clothes out and go through them to see if there's anything I don't want. I'm going to do all of that for next time then this goal will be off the list too.

8.
Get through borrowed stuff. Finished the Indigo books of Corey's, and decided I really wasn't into the other series he sent, so I'm just going to return it. That gets rid of 12 books right there. >_> Also finished a good bit of Christian's stuff, and I only have one library book out. I'll probably keep working my way through the two series I've been getting from the library, but other than that I'm not taking anything out. Now I just have to get through all of Doug's books...

And now for the new goals, or ones that used to be here but are getting put back on the list.

9. Nano 2008. I want to participate again this year, even though I think I'm insane for trying. And I want to win. I'd really like to hit 75k words instead of 50k but I don't see that being realistic so for now the goal is just to win. I'm contemplating doing daily updates through Nano on here for some feedback but we'll see how that goes.

Actually...I'm not going to add any more. It's nearly the end of the year, and these goals were originally things to try and do over the year. I'll just stick with what I have for now, and see where I am in two months. Then I'll start with an entirely fresh list on January 1st.

That's enough for now, I'll probably have a work update soon enough or else I'll write after my first day of Nano. If I come up with a plot for my novel.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Oh my....

And so ends my first week in my new job. Today I spent the majority of the day changing prices, because merchandising decided they wanted to use a different kind of spreadsheet? We have a price spreadsheet for each of the 300 or so vendors we have, and each of them needs to be redone every time any prices change. And suddenly merchandising decided the format used for the past 4 years isn't good enough anymore.

Yeah I don't get it, all I know is that means all of the old spreadsheets Jen spent countless overtime hours doing are worthless. Nice of them, huh? I'm going to redo about half of them for her before she goes absolutely batshit insane. I'm surprised she hasn't already, actually. I did one brand of shoes today and between all of the styles, colors, and sizes, had to change over 3200 prices. Must remember to start taking a pair of glasses to work so when I have to stare at Excel for 5 hours I won't get such a headache from my contacts.

Luckily, that one I did today was one of the worst. I have one more shoe spreadsheet and then the rest will be quick ones for some of the other stores. No more than 20-30 items on any of those so they will go quickly. This is good, as I'm starting to actually place orders next week and won't have the time to fuck with Excel so much. Cori also decided how she's going to split everything between me and Jen. She's giving me the flag, tea, and safety stores, and then Jen will have the other four. Mine are by far the biggest three stores, and the ordering for them involves some crazy Excel formulas. But Cori says I'm better with Excel so she wants me to handle them.

Jen and I will both be trained in all of the stores, so that if someone is out sick or on vacation we can cover for them, but for the most part we'll just be handling everything associated with our respective stores. Jen will do the returns for all stores on her own. There are a couple of other little things that Jen will do as well, so the work load will be pretty even overall even though I'm responsible for the bigger stores. Or that's what Cori says; I haven't done enough of this to know. She said that once I'm trained to let her know if it's too much and we'll see about redistributing the work a bit.

To say I'm nervous about all of this would be a huge understatement. Whether the workload is supposedly going to be the same or not, the fact remains that a week ago I was doing customer service and suddenly I'm going to be responsible for purchasing for stores that make up over 3/4 of our revenue. Luckily I will be clearing everything Cori for months before being left to my own devices, but it's still a lot to take in.

At any rate, I'm done thinking about it for now. I'm exhausted and need to get some sleep. Goals update will be coming on Sunday if all goes according to plan, and then I'll probably update on work yet again sometime next week. Or I might just post to panic about how I'm never going to learn everything and will get myself fired. We'll see. ^_^

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

So far so good

Today was my third day on the new job and it's going well so far. I haven't really trained at all. I spent maybe an hour Monday morning learning how to receive inventory and a few other things, and then they just kind of started handing me stacks of papers. And GOD the emails. I added over 300 folders to my email on Monday morning because I need separate folders for each vendor for 8 stores. I thought that seemed a bit much until I actually started getting the emails. I'm not sure how often Outlook receives emails but I get at least 5 every single time it does. And it's not even the busy season yet.

I'm perfectly comfortable with everything I've learned so far, and Cori said she's impressed because she figured it would take at least a week before I was working entirely on my own (like I have been since Tuesday lol). She's going to start me on one or two other things tomorrow, and then on Monday I'm going to learn about drawing up and placing the orders for some of the stores. She's not sure how she's going to split the stores in the end. But I'll definitely have the safety store, and she seems to be leaning toward giving me the flag store as well. Maybe strollers. The flag store is our biggest and would be more than enough in itself, but I suppose I'll deal. >_>

Another thing I really like now that I've moved is I'm allowed to listen to music. All of the computers in the company come with iTunes installed, but in customer service I never got to take advantage of that since I was always on the phone. I've already ripped about 9 CDs over to my computer and I'm sure I'll have about 600 songs by the end of the week. It's also really nice because I can put on headphones and drown out the wholesale people who are right near me. I like Todd and Sherri but they're really loud sometimes. XD

And speaking of music....

April brought me over a bunch of mix CDs she had so that I could copy them to my computer and have something to listen to besides the one CD I brought in from my car. It's a pretty good and random collection of stuff. I'm sitting there fiddling with inventory and half listening to one of them, and this weird techno like song comes on. I'm still only half paying attention and then all of a sudden the words got my attention. I restarted the song and sat there actually paying attention to it, and absolutely died laughing. I was in hysterics at my desk, in the middle of work. April came over, looked at the track I was on, and just giggled and walked away. The bitch. >_>

Turns out it's some Adam Sandler song, but I've never really listened to anything of his so I'd never heard it before. Here it is so everyone understands what I'm talking about, and why is was so damn funny...



That's about it for tonight. I really will be getting another goal update up this weekend, I hope. I've just been too busy to redo my damn list!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

My job is awesome

I said in my last entry that there were some things going on with work that I couldn't explain quite yet, but it's all straightened out now so might as well blog about it. I've only been at my current job for three months. I started in mid-July as a temp in customer service. I did well in there, obviously. I've already said in other entries how that went, and how I've gotten two raises and was offered a permanent position at the company. That kicked in this past Monday.

Monday afternoon my department had a meeting in the break room with Brian and Kim. They explained that we would be extending hours to 9pm Monday through Friday. Instead of the 8-4:45, 9-5:45, and 10:15-7 shifts we have now, the new shifts would be 8-4:45, 10:15-7, and 12:15-9. Kind of annoying but everyone would only have to work one of those late shifts per week. However, there would always have to be a supervisor there as one of the people working the late shift. At the moment we only have two supervisors, so Brian mentioned possibly naming 1-2 more supervisors so it would be a bit more even for everyone. If he would have done that there was a very good possibility I would be one of the new supervisors, just going by people who know what they're doing and have been there a while.

However, on Tuesday Kim said they'd worked something out that they didn't need any more supervisors at this time. No big deal, just went on with my day. When I got back from lunch I had an email from Brian titled "Opportunity". It started off saying it was strictly confidential and then went on to tell me about an opening in purchasing that he thought I should interview for. It also said that I could work there until I finished my bachelor's degree in May, and then move directly to accounting.

Problem was I'm not finishing my bachelor's in May, I'm finishing my associate's. Then I still have a handful of classes left for the bachelor's. So I'm slightly disappointed in this, thinking it means I can't get the purchasing job after all. But I email Brian and explain it anyway as I'm not about to leave that rather important fact out.

He responds asking me to come to his office around 4. When I get there he tells me that I can still go for the purchasing job if I'd like. I would just be there for a couple of extra semesters until I finished my bachelor's degree, and then move to accounting. Plus, they'll reimburse me for about $2000 a year in tuition, which means I can actually continue now instead of taking time off to save for a more expensive school.

So I say, of course I'm interested in the promotion, what is it? And he tells me it's for Mike's job, as Mike is up for a promotion to warehouse manager. Mike would be the purchasing manager for half the company, pretty much. I've never done a thing with purchasing in my life. Brian was all, "Well that's okay, you'll learn. I'll set up the interview with Cori (overall head of purchasing)."

I end up having to go for the interview Thursday morning. Because the entire thing was very hush hush, I had to go off-site for the interview. They didn't know if Mike was getting the promotion and didn't want him to know anything about them interviewing his potential replacements. So I went into work Thursday for about 45 minutes and then drove down the street to Bob Evans to meet Cori for breakfast (on the company, while on the clock ^_^). It went alright, but I honestly didn't think I would have gotten the job. The look on Cori's face when I said I'd only officially been an employee for three days...lol. At any rate, she said she had some other people to interview and didn't know what was going on with Mike, so it would be sometime next week probably before I heard anything. I left feeling decent about the interview but didn't really have my hopes up.

Friday rolls around and I'm on one of my few calls as it's dead as hell. Cori pops around the corner and says to hurry up and then meet her in the conference room. I follow her in there...in all honesty I figured she was going to tell me Mike wasn't getting the promotion. She'd said she had other people to interview and I didn't think she'd have picked me at all, much less after a day. But she did want to offer me the job. ^_^

The catch was that Mike was promoted effective immediately, so it starts this Monday. But what the hell, I'm not going to pass up the opportunity. So I accepted, and my supervisor congratulated me and nearly cried that I was leaving, which made me nearly cry. Then I sat in absolute shock for the rest of the day at what had happened.
I find it almost ridiculous that I got 2 raises and a promotion by the time I officially worked for the company for four days. Hell, I don't even get benefits until January!

So...Monday then. I'm not sure how it's going to go but I learn quickly so I'm hoping to pick it up. I'm nervous, but really excited to be getting off the phones and into a department much closer to my actual degree. We'll see how it goes!

Monday, October 13, 2008

My grandmother's car is trying to kill me

I swear it's out to get me. First it locked itself with the keys inside. My gran still doesn't believe that story but whatever, lol. I have no idea how it happened and I'm not sure I'd believe me either. Then there was this morning.

Right now the car is out of windshield wiper fluid. Noticed this on Friday. We didn't have any at home so I was going to get some on Sunday, but then Fran dropped a bottle off on Sunday morning. So I go to put it in the car and we can't get the hood open. We pull the lever, nothing happens. It doesn't pop. I went and tried wriggling my fingers underneath to get to the latch, thinking that maybe we just couldn't see it. It was not open. I put all my weight on it trying to pull it up and no luck.

So I tell my grandmother to call the dealer in the morning. We were thinking something got disconnected between the lever and where it opened, no big deal.

Right, no big deal at all. Until I'm going 65-70mph on the highway this morning on my way to work and the fucking hood flies open.


I thought I was gonna die, seriously. I can't remember a time I was ever that scared. Now luckily it did not fly the entire way up and block the windshield or I would have definitely wrecked. As it was, I somehow managed to slam on the brakes and go really slow to my exit which at this point was only a quarter of a mile away. Then when I got to the stop sign at the exit ramp I threw it into park, got out, and got the hood closed. I then proceeded to shake like a leaf the rest of the drive to work. As soon as I got there I called my gran and started freaking out. I'm just grateful that I managed to keep calm enough to get through it and to work in one piece.

Gran brought up a good point though. If it was going to happen I'm glad it happened to me, as my reflexes are better than hers. At least I was able to get through it unscathed, whereas my gran probably would have been in an accident. =\

Anyway, enough of the depressing shit. I'm starting to get excited for Halloween. I've started reading horror
books and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer again. And I'm trying to find a bunch of horror movies to watch over Halloween weekend. Plus the costume thing though I still have no idea what to do there. Apparently there's a contest at work and whoever wins get's the general manager's parking spot for a week. So I might have to think about dressing up for work, if I can come up with anything decent in the next week or two.

Also, I decorated my desk at work a bit for Halloween today. Kerry has sooo much H
alloween stuff. She's got about a dozen little miniature scenes and things in her area. Plus a disembodied head sitting on top of the wall that keeps scaring the hell out of people because its eyes follow you when you walk. She's got way too much just for her own desk though, so she's letting a bunch of us borrow some of her miniatures to put at our desks. She gave me a haunted hotel that plays creepy music and flashes lightning.

She also gave me a pirate ship. The pirate ship fires cannons, and plays music. And rocks back and forth like it's at sea. And the pirates yell insults at each other. It's awesome. Yes I'm that easily entertained. I can't wait until tomorrow when she brings me more stuff to add. I have a feeling that by Halloween I'm going to have a hard time getting any work done at my desk...

At any rate, I'm done writing for tonight. I have a lot of stuff to talk about that will be going on with work, but
some of that needs to wait for reasons I'll have to explain later. I also have an updated goals list to get up. I've got class tomorrow so I doubt I'll blog at all but I'm hoping to have both of those entries up by the end of the week. Especially the work thing. I'm dying to tell everyone about it but I really can't put it on my public blog just yet. Hopefully by Wednesday at least some of it will be official so I can get it on here. ^_^






Friday, October 10, 2008

Chris and I have the most messed up conversations sometimes...

Denise says:
OH

Denise says:
and I'm entirely too juvenile

Denise says:
but you are too so you'll love this

Christian says:
i think youve looked at enough weird foriegn shit XD

Christian says:
uh oh

Denise says:
I like, choke and die every time someone orders this shit

Denise says:
http://www.englishteastore.com/auspdipu.html

Christian says:
ok seriously

Denise says:
I shit you not

Denise says:
I did not know about it

Denise says:
and this guy calls in and said something like

Christian says:
i just giggled like a school girl

Denise says:
I'd like to check on the status of my spotted dick

Christian says:
and im scared

Denise says:
I DIED

Christian says:
HAHAHAHAHA

Christian says:
oh my gentle jesus

Christian says:
tell me you died on the phone

Denise says:
I half choked half laughed and I was like, "I'm sorry sir, WHAT?!?!"

Christian says:
HAHAHA

Denise says:
Then I told him to hold while I looked up the order and laughed for 3 minutes

Denise says:
This may need chatlogged

Christian says:
i do agree

Christian says:
spotted dick

Christian says:
HA

Denise says:
XD

Christian says:
is it weird that im actually picturing a dick with spots

Christian says:
cuz i totally am

Christian says:
and yet more giggles are escaping

Christian says:
I CANT HOLD THEM IN

Christian says:
HELP

Denise says:
How the hell can I help YOU I haven't been able to breathe for the last 5 minutes

Christian says:
youre in my damn head

Christian says:
TAKE THEM OUT

Denise says:
Take them out? What them? The penises?

Christian says:
THE GIGGLES, WOMAN

Denise says:
oh

Christian says:
THE GIGGLES

Denise says:
Right. I knew that.

Denise says:
>_>

Christian says:
start breathing and chatlog >_>

Denise says:
I just did up to that last thing lol

Denise says:
every time I went to submit we kept being fucking stupid XD

Christian says:
XD

Christian says:
omg

Denise says:
posted

Christian says:
see dick run

Denise says:
run dick run!

Christian says:
run dick run

Christian says:
RUN FROM THE SPOTS

Christian says:
BEFORE THEY CATCH YOU

Monday, October 6, 2008

Today kicked ass, even if it was a Monday...

Monday is usually my least favorite day of the week. I never want to go back to work. Even though I rather like my job and I wouldn't want to be bored all the time like I was when I wasn't working, it's still so difficult to drag myself out of bed at the beginning of the week and get going. On top of that, we're closed all weekend so Mondays are usually busy as hell.

Today was a bit different though. We were still busy as all hell, but just before lunch Brian (the general manager of the company) called me and asked me to come to his office, saying he and Kim (the head of my department) needed to speak with me. I of course immediately start going through my head to see what I could have done wrong that they would fire me for, because I am that paranoid. I know I'm doing well and yet I still automatically jump to the worst conclusion.

Anyway, it's all good news. They wanted to offer me the permanent position as I'm still a temp. Brian had said a month or so ago that they would hire me once my temp time was up, but they officially did today. So as of next Monday I'm a permanent employee. I've also gotten another dollar an hour raise, because I've been kicking everyone's asses in the statistics. Which is awesome, as I just got a dollar an hour raise a month ago, and wasn't supposed to be eligible for any more raises until January. Plus, in January all of my benefits kick in and I am still eligible for another raise. Not to mention, Brian said he can all but guarantee me that I'll be able to change to the accounting department if that's what I want to do, as soon as I finish my degree in May.

Then I get home, and the DVDs I ordered from Barnes and Noble that weren't supposed to ship until October 23rd were waiting for me on the kitchen table.

Yep, today was a great day. ^_^

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Halloween

I am apparently going out for Halloween. Or so I was informed last night at the bar. That's fine with me since it's a Friday evening, but now I'm going to have to come up with something to wear. I haven't dressed up in a while and I've no idea what to do. I don't have a lot of time to put something together so I need either something simple or something I can buy online that doesn't suck or cost a fortune.

So if anyone has any suggestions let me know! Legitimate ones only please, I don't need more links to nurse costumes that can't even be worn in public. (Damn you Chris.) ^_^